September 22, 2015 – Bangladesh A versus Karnataka.
There was something different about Prasidh Krishna’s delivery to Bangladesh A opener Rony Talukdar. The pacer standing six feet and two inches tall didn’t just land the ball on the seam, but also extracted a hint of bounce to force the opener to edge one to the slips, where Shishir Bhavane pouched the catch. A fast bowler finding any kind of awkward bounce from a slightly fuller length is always an asset. And more so, when it isn’t exactly a trait found among the Indian pace bowlers in general.
All those memories of watching Prasidh bowl in his maiden first-class game gushed forth eight years later: He dislodged Paul Stirling and Lorcan Tucker of Ireland in a T20I by hitting the bat hard on impact. In other words, the hit-the-deck skill turned out to be his USP, on that occasion.
Prasidh’s quiver consists of unique skill-sets compared to most of his peers in India and that’s a reason why the selectors have included him in the squad for the Asia Cup. The think-tank should still perhaps show a degree of caution in picking him in the XI, as conditions in the subcontinent aren’t exactly suited to his style of bowling, although small tweaks in his game could still yield results.
What could be those small tweaks Prasidh needs on tracks in the subcontinent? It could come down to shifting the line and zooming the ball more on the stumps to take advantage of any low bounce on offer. It is simple logic that pounding the deck hard from a high release would mean it accentuates the effect of variable bounce.
Prasidh also has a tendency to look for swing with the white Kookaburra. But the white ball doesn’t swing for long periods, and as Prasidh is set to come in as first-change, he can look at sticking to his strengths of hitting a shorter length and pounding the pitch hard. To sift some evidence, rewind back in time to Ahmedabad last year when he played against the West Indies in a 50-over series.
In the second ODI, he mostly pinned the batters on the back foot by employing the in-between length. In fact, as per Cricbuzz’s text commentary, he bowled just a single fuller length delivery in his first spell. Granted that the track offered some bounce, but Prasidh was rewarded with four wickets because he didn’t experiment with his lengths. In the post-match presser, captain Rohit Sharma heaped praise on the bowler by saying, “I have never seen a spell like that in India in a long time.”
So by tweaking a couple of nuts and bolts, Prasidh could come into the equation during the Asia Cup or World Cup against certain teams and in certain conditions. In the long term, the coaching staff would also be hoping to employ his hit-the-deck skills during the tour of South Africa, especially in the backdrop of the two Tests scheduled to be played in Cape Town and Centurion. Both tracks could offer spongy bounce, and a few cracks might open up as the match progresses at Centurion.
Here, we need to throw in a word of caution or two about Prasidh’s fitness, as he is returning from a serious back injury. If we do some research on his bowling action, he seems to have some lateral flexion at the point of release, and that could result in back injuries.
To illustrate the point further, just glance through the below mentioned screenshot of Prasidh bowling in the Maharaja Trophy in 2023, where his head is falling away quite a bit. Simply put, he seems to have more of a mixed action.
Incidentally, Mylvahanan Senthilnathan, the chief coach of MRF Academy, had once shared his insights to this writer about how the coaches had tried to work on Prasidh’s fitness and technique. “He was muscling the ball. We worked on him to make him stronger, so that he could use the non-bowling arm. Once he starts using that, his head won’t fall as much.”
At the age of 27, the lanky pace bowler is nearing the peak of his career. With his weaponry, Prasidh could be one of the mainstays of the Indian pace attack. And he might also end up playing a useful role in a couple of major tournaments in the next few months.